


what dreams may come

by thbrkdwn



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Slow Dancing, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-21 07:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17039600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thbrkdwn/pseuds/thbrkdwn
Summary: “To sleep, perchance to dream –For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause.”– Hamlet, Act III Scene Ior, Steve Rogers is no stranger to fever dreams.





	1. Chapter 1

Steve wakes up with tears in his eyes and a deep ache in his chest.

He blinks. It’s dim in the room, and it takes his vision a few moments to adjust. The ceiling’s a pale peach, paint cracking near the corners, stained and flaking in other areas. It looks, he realises, uncannily similar to the ceiling of the tenement he lived in with his ma before she died.

The next thing he registers is there’s someone holding his left hand. He tilts his head to the side. Said person holding his hand is a boy slumped forward on an old wooden chair, the main part of him visible to Steve being the mop of unruly brown hair as he sat with his head pillowed on his other forearm which was resting on Steve’s bed.

Steve frowns, squeezes the boy’s hand. The boy stirs, then lifts his head and blinks up at him sort of blearily.

“Bucky,” Steve says. It comes out as more of a rasp.

“Steve. Steve, you’re awake,” Bucky says, a smile spreading across his face – his face, which is limned with a diffused warm glow round the edges from the yellowish lamplight behind him. Edges which are less sharp than Steve remembers, cheekbones not as pronounced, his mouth soft and relaxed instead of a hardened line. His hair curls over his forehead, longer and wilder than it’s been in forever, it seems. His thumb strokes soothingly over the back of Steve’s hand. Now Steve looks down at his skinny wrist.

He asks, “Am I– am I dead?” The moment he says it, he feels stupid, but that’s the only logical explanation.

“What? No,” Bucky says, incredulous, staring at Steve like he’s gone nuts. “You’re talkin’ nonsense, like you always do when the fever gets to your head.” He touches his wrist to Steve’s clammy forehead. “Seems like it’s broken, anyhow,” he says, satisfied. He passes Steve a chipped mug filled with water. “Now, drink up. I gotta go call your ma, tell her you’re awake.”

His ma?

“Wait,” Steve stops him, “wait, Bucky. Stay a while.”

“Alright,” Bucky says, brow furrowing in consternation, but he sits back down anyway. Steve reaches for his hand, and twines their fingers together. A strange sort of longing claws desperately behind his ribs, keening and devastating in its rawness as he looks at Bucky, focuses on the point of contact between them. His eyes fill with tears, and he grips at Bucky’s hand tighter, never wants to let go. The bone-deep intensity of the feeling is foreign, and disorientating. Though, he feels plenty disorientated already without it. “You okay there, pal?” Bucky asks, squeezing Steve’s hand lightly.

“I thought you were dead,” Steve says, hoarse, as an onslaught of memories flood his head. “God, Bucky, I thought I lost you.” His voice cracks on the last word and the moment he blinks the tears start spilling of their own volition. He sniffles and distantly thinks he should be embarrassed for crying like a baby but it’s _Bucky_ , whole and _alive_ right here in front of him and he feels like his heart might burst.

Bucky’s eyes widen with alarm. He’s up in a jiffy and squeezes in next to Steve on the tiny rickety bed, holding his small body tight in his arms as it wracks with sobs. “Hey, hey, no,” Bucky soothes, “I’m right here, see? I’m right here. I ain’t goin’ anywhere, I promise.”

Steve presses his wet face into Bucky’s neck and breathes deep. He can smell the aftershave Bucky used to buy on the cheap that somehow still smells amazing on him, at least to Steve, fresh and slightly woodsy, mixed with a scent that’s just Bucky, familiar as going home. Bucky keeps making soothing sounds, fingers carding gently through Steve’s hair as Steve’s tears dampen his shirt.

Eventually Steve calms down enough to pull back, hands coming up to frame Bucky’s face – disbelieving, almost reverent. His eyes rove over Bucky’s features – the straight line of his nose, the curve of his mouth, the gentle divot in his chin. He must’ve lingered too long over Bucky’s eyes like he wants to commit them to memory forever (he thought he had, before, and was horrified at how quick he started to forget the exact shade of blue, or the patterns in their irises; he will die before he lets himself make that mistake again), because Bucky takes hold of his wrists gently, and threads their fingers together.

“I’m fine, Steve. Hell, I thought I’d lose you there, way you were knocked out,” Bucky says. “Must’ve been one hell of a dream you were having.”

Right. He was dreaming. That’s also a logical explanation. Better than Steve’s theory that he died, in any case.

But it had felt so _real_ , and Steve’s no stranger to fever dreams. This one in particular hit him right where it hurt, and settled into the spaces there with haunting intensity.

Steve drops his gaze to their interlocked fingers, his white-knuckled grip. “There was,” he starts. He clears his throat, focuses on putting together an explanation as succinct as possible. The grisly details wouldn’t do either of them any favours. “There was... another war. You were drafted.” He swallows. “I... They gave me this– this serum. Made me bigger. Stronger.” He quirks a wry smile up at Bucky, a half-hearted attempt at levity through self-deprecation, but Bucky’s looking at him intently with no amusement on his face. “We were, well. We were on the same team. There was a mission. On a– on a train, over the Alps, and then you–”

Steve’s breathing quickens, and then Bucky says, “Hey, breathe. Breathe, you’re alright.”

He continues, “You– I couldn’t catch you, and you f-fell. I was too late. It was just half a second, and I was too late. Oh god, _Bucky_. It felt so _real_ , you don’t even–” He hugs Bucky again, and Bucky presses a kiss into his lank, greasy hair.

“Look at you, always makin’ up crazy things in that noggin of yours. You know, you could write a book, or draw a comic – maybe it’d get published in one of the pulps, now there’s an idea,” Bucky teases gently, voice tender. For once Steve’s so past caring that he’s practically making Bucky coddle him – instead he clings on to it. As long as he has Bucky here with him warm and safe he can’t care about anything else at all.

“You said you had to call my ma,” Steve says. Bucky hums. “What’s today’s date?”

“March 6th. It’s Wednesday. You’ve been barely conscious and half out of your mind for two days. Talkin’ nonsense in your sleep ’n all,” Bucky says. “We were real scared, thought we were gonna lose you, or the fever’d fry your brain something awful. Your ma wanted to stay with you but she couldn’t miss work any longer.”

Everything Bucky said did absolutely nothing to ease Steve’s confusion. “No, I meant–” he shakes his head, “–the, um. What year is it?” He tries to keep his voice level, but there’s really no way a person can ask that question whilst maintaining a façade of normalcy.

Sure enough, Bucky looks at him again, renewed worry showing on his face. “It’s 1935,” he says carefully. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I just. I’m just... y’know. Kinda out of it.”

March 6th, 1935. Steve is sixteen.

So the part where his ma died... that was part of the dream too. It must be.

Steve’s so relieved he’s breathless with it. Or that might just be his lungs, because apparently they still don’t work right. He’s never been so glad about that his whole life.

“I’ll say. Now, drink your water. I’ll go call her, else she’ll have my head.” Bucky ruffles his hair as he stands again. Steve lets him go this time, taking the mug obediently as Bucky heads into the hall to use the telephone.

—

If Steve sits on the leftmost side of their ratty old couch at just the right angle, he can see a sliver of sunrise between the old tenement buildings through the window. In the warmer months he’d sometimes sit out on the fire escape, leaning against the side rail.

Steve loves watching the sunrise because the change is so gradual he doesn’t even notice until he realises in stages that the sky’s considerably lighter, wonders when that happened; first it’s near-black, then a bruised purple, then orange starts peeking through, and before you know it the sun’s high up there. The dawn of a new day is nearly the same every time, the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quality of a process with no definitive turning point. Larger than life. It makes him feel tiny, figuratively speaking – not like he needs help with that in the literal sense.

Bucky’s drifting in and out of sleep, head resting on Steve’s bony shoulder, and he swears up and down it’s a perfectly comfortable position. Steve doesn’t believe him for a second, but doesn’t argue about it. This way, Steve gets to alternate between watching the day break between the buildings and measuring its progress by the subtle hints of red-gold warmth that begins to show in Bucky’s hair and the soft curl of his lashes as more light filters in through the window.

He can’t seem to tear his eyes away from Bucky for long, has this utterly irrational fear that if he does Bucky might just dissipate into thin air like a mirage.

Steve’s ma comes home at seven thirty-four in the morning and finds them sitting like this, Steve wrapped up in two threadbare blankets, Bucky pressing up along the side of him, maybe drooling in his sleep. Steve knows his ma thinks Bucky Barnes is a real blessing to the Rogers household, steadfast and unwavering, sitting at his bedside through every illness. He’s also pretty much the only one who has any sort of chance at keeping Steve on the straight and narrow, always pulling him out of starting fights. And when he couldn’t do that, he finished them for Steve and afterwards brought him home and gave him a telling-off for being a rash idiot.

Conversely, Steve often thought he might be a bit of a pest to the Barneses, always getting their son into sticky situations, but they doted on him anyhow.

Steve’s ma’s face, like Bucky’s, looks rounder and younger than he expects somehow. Her cheeks are less sallow, her pallor livelier though he’s sure she must be dog-tired, what with tending to his illness and working graveyard shifts at the hospital.

That dream must have done a real number on him, he thinks. His sense of reality seems almost warped. He figures it’ll wear off soon.

When Steve’s ma comes to take his temperature, Bucky wakes, rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles the way he’s had a habit of doing since he was a kid. He’s got work at the docks in about an hour, and Steve feels horribly guilty to have deprived him of sleep, knows that it’s demanding, gruelling work, though Bucky waves him off and says he’s completely fine.

Steve’ll bet Bucky’s hardly slept more than three consecutive hours since his illness got more serious, which was probably about a week ago, give or take. He politely refuses Mrs Rogers’ insistent offers to feed him ( _it’s only right_ , she says) before he goes, saying he’ll pick up something on the way, but he does down two cups of coffee before he heads out.

Steve’s reluctant to see him go; the horrible twist in his chest returns, though not as violently – a mere shadow of its predecessor, but it makes Steve ache anyway. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him.

A short while after a Bucky goes Steve’s ma starts to fuss, makes him take another dose of medicine to make sure he’s fully recovered even though they really can’t afford to take medicine when it’s not strictly necessary. He tells her so, and she counters by saying, “Would you rather have your fever come back because that’d be even more expensive you know,” as she smooths his hair back and he has to admit she’s right.

He looks at her grey-streaked blonde hair in its neat bun, save for the loose strands around her face, and the crow’s feet starting to come in around her eyes, which are otherwise the same as his, and her nurse’s uniform, and misses her suddenly, viscerally, terribly. He contemplates telling her about his dream, but decides against it when he sees how exhausted she is. She doesn’t need more to worry about, least of all some inconsequential fever dream.

He lets her get to sleep, nocturnal as she had to learn to be because of her job, says goodnight even though it’s morning as he always does because ‘good morning’ just doesn’t make sense.

—

Some nightmares linger in the periphery of the mind’s eye longer than others.

When he’s left sitting in the living room by himself, Steve remembers an odd recurring nightmare he used to have when he was small, around seven or eight. It was, inexplicably, about a bird that liked to eat human flesh. Specifically, Steve’s human flesh. It’d find him wherever he was, pecking away at him little by little, and every time the dream came back he’d find chunks of flesh missing from his body in new places. When he woke up he’d relive the dream and it’d be crystal clear in his head, and he’d realise that the places where the chunks of flesh were missing weren’t even where the damned bird had pecked at the previous time he’d dreamt.

Now, he supposes it was the sort of dream that seemed horrifying when you were asleep and had little to no grasp on reality, but when you woke up you’d realise how nonsensical it had been, albeit strange and arguably unsettling. Then the terror would diffuse and you’d go on with your life like always. As a kid, though, that dream had freaked the hell out of him even when he thought about it in broad daylight. To this day he still doesn’t know what it means, but it used to scare him anyway.

He remembers telling Bucky about it, after the third or fourth time it had happened. They were in Prospect Park on a summer’s day, and Bucky listened with rapt attention and wide eyes, and then he chucked Steve under the chin and teased, “Can’t believe half the things that go on in that noggin of yours. You could write a story and send it in to _Weird Tales_ or something.” At eight or nine, Bucky was already an avid fan of pulps, especially the scary stories, and always seemed to be able to get his hands on some, much to Mrs Barnes’ disapproval.

Then Bucky started to weave wild narratives, building them around the scene that kept showing up in Steve’s nightmares. Steve laughed about it, then, and it suddenly didn’t seem as frightening any longer. How could it be, when Bucky was sprawled on the grass beside him, hands gesticulating excitedly as he spun a story out of it?

And Steve’s not sure, but as far as he remembers, he doesn’t think the nightmare came back to haunt him again anymore after that day.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so a while ago I said I was working on a new fic and here is the first chapter!! I hope y’all will like it :’)


	2. Chapter 2

Realistically, Steve knows his dream was really just that – a dream. But in the following days he wakes up in the morning apprehensive, afraid that any moment he’d wake up with Bucky gone and his ma long dead.

At sixteen, Steve is no stranger to nightmares, or hallucinations.

At eight years old he got scarlet fever, which progressed into rheumatic fever. It was the sickest he’d ever been, has ever been, even till now, and it’s a miracle he even survived. Along with the swelling in his throat that had made it feel like it was on fire and the resultant heart complications that will stay with him the rest of his life, with the fever came delirium and a myriad of dreams, sometimes terrifying, sometimes confusing, sometimes both. Yet none of them had ever clung to him as aggressively after as this nightmare is doing right now.

He forces himself to relive the whole horrific thing and makes himself consider the surreal, unrealistic qualities of pretty much everything that had happened in it. He doesn’t think the United States would get involved in another war, and even if it does, the whole deal about supersoldier serums and heroic missions seemed like something straight out of a comic – just like Bucky said. 

Steve was probably projecting – it’s no secret that his frail and sickly constitution bothers him more than anything else, not much of a stretch to imagine that in sleep he would desperately try to make up for it by spinning a grotesque alternate reality where he was not only healthy but superhuman, invincible. 

He thinks of the other people whose faces appeared in his dream – Agent Carter, with her dark curls and red, red lips, punching Gilmore Hodge in the face so hard he fell on his ass in the dirt. Right there was another element that confirmed how far-fetched his dream truly was. In the Great War, some women had fought in the US Navy, or served as nurses, but Steve doesn’t think they’d recruit women to take on such a crucial role in a war agency, even a decade or so from now. Besides, it was only in his dreams that a swell dame like Agent Carter would ever pay him any mind.

When Steve was younger, he once asked his mother where the people in his dreams came from. His mother said that their brains could not invent faces, that in their dreams they saw the faces of real people that had passed them by during their waking hours. The human subconscious remembers them, and sometimes, they turn up in dreams. 

Steve does not travel very often, and when he does, he does not go far. He’s lived near the Navy Yard his whole life, and has only really ventured as far out as he could go via the El. 

In that case, Steve supposes, it’s not wholly unthinkable that maybe one day he’d pop into the corner-store and see not-Howard Stark by the dairy aisle. Maybe one day he’d get on the subway, and unbeknownst to him not-Dr. Erskine would be in the next carriage over, or one day he’d be walking down the street and he’ll see the face of not-Margaret Carter under the brim of a hat, as fiercely stunning as always. 

—

On the tenth, Bucky turns eighteen.

The year he turned fifteen, Bucky started growing into himself more. He was, all of a sudden it seemed, fast approaching six feet tall, while Steve remained runty and a whole head shorter than him. Dames started paying more attention to Bucky, and he’d started taking them out on dates – to the pictures, or Coney Island, or dancehalls. Steve’d figured, naturally, now that Bucky had girls falling all over him he’d be celebrating his birthday with a steady, or going out dancing. 

Needless to say he was surprised when Bucky still wanted to spend it with him instead, like they had every year since Bucky was seven and Steve was six. He expressed as much to Bucky, who proceeded to cuff him over the head and call him a dolt.

Despite that, Steve still had his doubts when Bucky turned sixteen, seventeen, but Bucky stuck with him, for some reason incomprehensible to Steve. 

This year it falls on a Saturday, which means neither of them have work. Steve can’t afford much, but Bucky likes his drawings well enough, so he draws Bucky several eight-frame comic strips featuring the Barnes siblings, in the style of those funnies Bucky got a hoot out of. Steve likes the way Bucky’s nose scrunches when he smiles really big, or when he laughs. 

Steve takes Bucky downtown to the theatre to see _Bride of Frankenstein_ , because Bucky’s a horror fiend, though horror films freak Steve out to no end and make his skin crawl. Then they stop at the soda fountain at the drugstore where Steve treats Bucky to an egg cream and Bucky says, “Aw, you didn’t have to do that,” all regretful the way he always does on the rare occasions Steve gets to spend money on him, and Steve says, “Shut up and drink your soda.”

As much as the film scared the fuck out of Steve he decides it’s worth it when Bucky talks his ear off all the way back to the Barneses’ place, about how it’s even better than the first _Frankenstein_ film which Bucky’d convinced Steve to go see with him when it first came out – he’s certain his ma and Mrs Barnes both would faint if they knew the types of movies their sons were watching. 

Steve himself thinks it’s way gruesome, but he likes the way Bucky’s eyes are lit up, how the inflection in his voice spills from him like sunbeams. He likes the way Bucky’s smiling so wide his nose is scrunched up, the way he seems completely unaware of the fact that he’s at risk of splashing the egg cream all over the pavement every few seconds because of how he talks with his hands without a care, so Steve listens anyway and find himself unable to look away. 

That night after Bucky’s parents and sisters have gone to bed they lay the couch cushions on the floor beside Bucky’s bed like they did when they were kids, Bucky joining Steve there and leaving the bed empty. The light issuing from the desk lamp blots out the blackened indigo of the night, and yields to the shadows that slant across the floor. 

Conversation ebbs and flows easily, idly; it comes when a topic of interest occurs to either of them, and then trickles off, leaving them both to lapse into comfortable silence. They’re both lying on the cushions, Bucky’s arm wrapped around Steve whose head is pillowed on his shoulder. At one point Bucky, half-asleep, mumbles, “Hey, Steve, d’you think one day a person could... could make a person?”

“Yeah, Buck, that’s called childbirth,” Steve says. 

“No, you ass,” Bucky says, hand reaching up to pinch Steve in the arm for being a smart-mouth, “I meant like. Like in _Frankenstein_.”

“God, I fuckin’ hope not.” Steve shudders at the thought. He chooses not to retaliate to the physical attack because he’s nice like that. Also because he likes the way Bucky’s holding him and he doesn’t want to disturb the comfortable position they’re in. 

“Me too. That’d be horrible.” Bucky says, speech no longer slurred and sluggish. He’s probably wide awake now. Steve tilts his head up to check, sees Bucky’s face half-obscured through light-darkness. He feels his heart twist when he meets the grey-blue gaze of one visible eye, looking right back at him and so earnest in its focus, the near-imperceptible upturn of full red lips. He looks away quickly. 

Bucky’s handsome, he realises – not for the first time, he’s certain of it, but the epiphany continues to feel new every time. It makes him think of Monet’s Houses of Parliament – he saw it in a book at the public library once, the same building painted over and over, but every piece different because of the way light was wont to settle whichever way it felt like doing at any point in time. 

Bucky’s like that: dynamic, never seeming to keep still. Every time Steve thinks he’s seen every detail, then he catches Bucky in a new angle, a momentary frame caught in motion, and it steals his breath. Bucky would smile in that way he did, or do something as ordinary as smoking a cigarette, except his head would be tilted so he could exhale the smoke in the opposite direction from where Steve was, and Steve would realise time and again how effortlessly gorgeous he was, always.

He’s tried immortalising these frames, tried to put them on paper, but his memory doesn’t do them justice. Steve wishes for his sketchbook now, while Bucky lies calm and quiet, still as he’ll ever be as dim light spills over him, careless, yet intricate in its nuance all the same. Going to get it means he has to stand, though, and Steve thinks nothing could get him to move away in this moment. Steve looks up again, sees that Bucky’s eyes are closed. He wonders when Bucky fell asleep.

Now that he’s had a disturbingly authentic taste of what it’d be like to lose Bucky, he never wants to stray far from him (not that he ever did, but his reluctance stretches further these days). He’s also mellower, doesn’t try to argue with Bucky as much as he did before this recent bout of illness. Used to be he’d get all grumpy and huffy when he thought Bucky was coddling him, was stubborn as a mule and quick-tempered too, and would try to pick a fight so that Bucky’d leave him be. Bucky rarely took the bait, would throw an arm around Steve’s shoulder and say, “You ain’t fighting with me, pal, don’t even try it.” Now he accepts Bucky’s enthusiastic affection without complaint, doesn’t swat his hand away when Bucky ruffles his hair like he’s his little kid brother, doesn’t protest when Bucky hugs him close to his chest like this and makes him feel small. He cherishes it, even, doesn’t seem to remember why he kicked up such a fuss before.

Steve looks away from the soft fan of Bucky’s lashes casting thin shadows on his cheekbones and his slightly parted lips. He wraps his arm around Bucky’s waist and burrows in closer, focuses on the slow, even rise and fall of Bucky’s chest as he sleeps, and tries to synchronise his own breathing to its steady rhythm.

—

The one thing Steve won’t stop fighting Bucky on, though, is the goddamn double dates. Bucky loves dragging Steve along on them, never failing to ask whichever girl he’s taking out if she maybe has a friend, or a sister. No matter how vehemently Steve protests, Bucky’s still somehow under the impression that he’s doing him a real favour, but Steve knows how it goes. It’s the same every time – Bucky tells the girl “only the good stuff”, and then the girl’s disappointed the moment she lays eyes on Steve’s small stature, and proceeds to ignore him best as she can for the rest of the painfully awkward date. 

If he’s being honest, he’d rather Bucky just out and tell the girl all the _bad_ stuff instead, so she doesn’t expect better than she’s gonna get. Of course, he’d really rather just not go on these dates in the first place, but that’s apparently not an option, partially also because Bucky sets them up before telling Steve, and it’s not like Steve can stand a girl up and leave her to be a third wheel. Bucky insists that they’ll find Steve a nice girl one day, someone who can see him for the great guy he is at heart, and when Steve tries to be difficult on purpose and says, “Yeah, except I have heart problems too, so there’s that,” Bucky rolls his eyes and doesn’t merit it with a response.

This time Bucky’s landed a date with Clara O’Leary and she’s as much of a bombshell as Steve’s ever seen, all blonde and leggy. She and Bucky make one hell of a beautiful pair, but Steve can’t help but find it strange how she keeps calling Bucky ‘James’. She’s got a friend who introduces herself to Steve as Edie Callahan, and she’s a wisp of a thing – a good two inches shorter than Steve, with wide brown eyes and brown ringlets.

It’s different this time because Edie actually seems like she wants to get to know Steve, but whether it’s just politeness or genuine interest Steve has no idea as of yet. She does slip her arm into Steve’s, which surprises him because his dates barely even touch him most of the time. 

They go to a dancehall, and Edie doesn’t even mind when Steve says he’s not much of a dancer, and proves it too – they dance to one song, and Steve steps on her toes one too many times but she takes it all in stride. Bucky and Clara can dance, and they stay on the floor almost the whole time while Steve and Edie get a table. 

On their walk here Bucky proudly proclaimed to Edie, “Steve here’s a real artist, you know,” and Steve flushed and denied it, but now he silently thanks Bucky for it in his head because as it turns out Edie knows a hell of a lot about art and has some strong opinions on Impressionism. Heaven knows he’d never have broached the topic himself because he would never in a million years think she shares that interest, plus he’s just bad at talking to dames in general. 

They talk Monet (Steve casts a look over at Bucky out on the floor and thinks, inevitably, of the Houses of Parliament), then Morisot, which leads to a discussion about the impact of female artists on the movement, and Steve thinks he could listen to Edie talk for hours and hours. She’s small and feisty and assertive about her opinions, and her brown eyes get all wide and bright when she talks about art. Steve could love her one day if he did not already love Bucky. 

He’s taken aback by that thought, and then he isn’t, because – of course, he loves Bucky. He’s in love with Bucky. He has known it his whole life, he has just realised it in this dancehall, on a date with one of the only girls who has ever shown an interest in him and captured his in turn. 

At the end of the night, he feels guilty when he kisses her goodbye on the front steps of her place, and vaguely agrees to take her out again sometime when she hints at it shyly, but it’s not like he can tell her the truth. 

Bucky, ever the expert in the trade of dating, picks up on it. After Edie goes in he slings an arm over Steve’s shoulders and says, “You can’t give a girl a half-assed answer like that, Steve, she’ll think you don’t wanna.” _And she’d be right_ , Steve doesn’t say. It’s not that he doesn’t like Edie. He really does. In fact, he thinks she’s perfect for him – or she would be, if someone else hadn’t already caught his eye. 

But it’s not like he can tell Bucky the truth, either. 

He can cling onto it with defiance and clenched jaws, he can let himself realise it over and over again, but he cannot tell the truth. 

He doesn’t have to, anyway, because Bucky continues talking. “Me, though, I don’t think I’ll be seeing that Clara gal anymore.” He makes a face. “Keeps callin’ me James. S’weird as hell.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the bride of frankenstein movie actually came out in april 1935 oops but let’s just ignore that


	3. Chapter 3

The single biggest problem about Steve is his inability to mind his own goddamn business.

It’s a Friday evening, and Steve loves Fridays because it’s the one day in the week he’s certain to see Bucky – not that he doesn’t already see him most days, if he’s being honest. But every Friday is the same: Steve goes to work at the drugstore, and after his shift ends at five-thirty he goes to the automat. He gets a chicken sandwich for himself, and then a macaroni and cheese for Bucky, because he ends earlier and can get to the automat before the rush hour when all the dock workers clock off. They eat, and they go back to Steve’s place. On occasion they go to Bucky’s, but more often than not it’s Steve’s because Bucky has two parents and three sisters around. Bucky sometimes says it’s like a madhouse in there, though Steve knows he loves his family and doesn’t really mean it. They started doing this after they both dropped out from school last year so they could work – Bucky first, then Steve a couple months later – just in case they drifted apart without school keeping them close. Clearly, that never happened, but the routine stuck around anyway. 

He’s almost at the automat, taking a turn on Navy Street and cursing the weather because it’s getting warmer these days and he’s straight-up sweating, when he passes a man leaning against the brick of a building with a cigarette between his teeth. When he hears the man shout something crude at a dame crossing the street, Steve stops in his tracks. He bristles, yells, “Hey, you wanna show some respect?” 

“Shut yer pie hole, kid, you lookin’ to get beat?” the guy shouts back.

Steve doesn’t shut his pie hole. That’s how he ends up getting beat up in an alleyway a block away from the automat. He holds his own for about a minute before he goes down, hissing through his teeth as he lands on his side with a thump. Punches start raining down on him real hard as the man starts pummelling his face in. He doesn’t know how long it goes on for.

Somewhere along the line he hears someone say, “Hey, what the fuck?” and distantly registers it as Bucky’s voice. The man gets hauled off him, and Steve slumps on the ground, still in the foetal position he went into so that his forearms and shins would take the brunt of the beating. His ribs still hurt something awful. He hears Bucky shouting, then he hears the man shouting, but he doesn’t know what they’re saying. 

He does hear Bucky spit, “Fuck off! Pick on someone your own size,” and his head lolls to the side just in time to see Bucky give the man a final well-aimed kick between the legs before he runs off.

“Gee, thanks, Buck,” Steve says weakly from where he’s lying prone on the floor. He coughs, feeling winded. The blood trickling from his nose gets in his mouth as he speaks, and the strong coppery taste floods his mouth. He grimaces. 

“What the fuck, Steve,” Bucky says as he storms towards Steve. He sounds furious. Steve hates it when Bucky’s angry at him.

“’M fine, Buck,” Steve slurs. “Just, y’know. A little roughed up.” He blinks up at Bucky slowly.

“A little,” Bucky echoes in disbelief. “A little, Jesus fucking Christ, Steve, do you even see yourself right now?” He grabs Steve by the shoulder and helps Steve up, none too gently. “There’s fuckin blood everywhere.” 

“Just my nose. Nosebleed. Noses bleed a lot, you know,” Steve says, kind of nonsensically, leaning on Bucky as Bucky steadies him. 

“You okay to walk?” Bucky asks. His voice sounds softer now, less harsh, though there are still worry lines on his forehead and his eyes are flicking over Steve’s body as if checking for any injuries he might’ve missed the first time he looked. His eyes linger on the blood stain on the front of Steve’s shirt. 

“Told you I’m fine, Buck,” Steve grumbles. It comes out sounding petulant even to his own ears. Bucky must think so too, because he huffs an irritated breath before pulling Steve’s arm over his own shoulder so that he can help him home. 

They must look a damn sight, Steve with a nosebleed, a split lip and blood all down the front of his shirt, but in true New York fashion no one pays them any mind. Probably also because something like this isn’t an especially shocking sight to anybody from Brooklyn Heights. 

Except Steve’s ma. Which is ironic, really, because she of all people should be used to this. 

“Oh my goodness, what happened?” she shrieks when Bucky pushes open the door to their tenement. She stands up from the couch quickly and rushes to them.

“Steve here thought it would be a good idea to get into a fight with a man three times the width of him and about half a foot taller too,” Bucky deadpans, dragging him indoors and dropping him on the couch with a grunt. Steve watches out of the corner of his eye as his ma goes into her bedroom, presumably to get the first aid kit. 

She comes back with antiseptic and gauze, starting on a litany of reproach while she cleans Steve’s wounds and patches them up. As she’s swiping antiseptic over the scrape on his cheekbone Steve winces and she says, “Serves you right! You are a _menace_ to yourself, Steven Grant.”

Bucky snorts from where he’s sitting on the couch, fiddling with a scrap of gauze. He says, “Hear, hear.” Steve reaches over to flick him on the arm, and his ma smacks him on the wrist for his effort. 

She continues with her steady stream of scolding. “I taught you to have better sense than to pick fights like a– like some _hooligan_ , Steven, what’s the matter with you?” She sounds torn halfway between exasperated and hysterical with worry, like she doesn’t know which she should be. 

Really, Steve doesn’t know why she’s so shocked, at this point. He’s not really known for his good sense.

“Yeah, _Steven_ ,” Bucky says waspishly.

Steve readjusts the rag against his nose and says nothing. He thinks that pointing out past incidents where he’d repeatedly exhibited his lack of good sense might not be a good idea, so he keeps his trap shut for perhaps the first time in his life. 

“Got a headache?” Steve’s ma asks. 

“No,” Steve replies.

“Nausea?”

“No.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” She holds up three. 

“Three,” Steve says. 

“Alright, at least nothing needs to be stitched up, and you’re most likely not concussed.” His ma sighs. “I’ll do another check when I get home from work. You feel any dizziness, any nausea, vomiting, you call me, got it?” Steve nods. 

“I can stay here tonight if you don’t mind, Mrs Rogers,” Bucky says. “Make sure he’s okay.”

Steve’s hit with a pang of guilt, feeling like a hell of a burden to both Bucky and his ma. 

“Oh, Bucky, you don’t have to. I’m sure your mother’s expecting you home,” Sarah says, tone softening. “Thank you, really. What did Steve ever do to deserve you?”

“Ma,” Steve protests, and gets ignored.

“It’s really no trouble, Mrs Rogers. I can give my ma a call. I really should stay with him, just in case.”

“Thank you, Bucky. You’re a real blessing, what would Steve do without you?” If Steve silently agrees with her, he doesn’t say so. “I’ll go call your ma on my way out, don’t you worry.”

Steve’s ma shuts the door behind her as she leaves, and Bucky says, “Hear that? I’m a real blessing, I am.” He shifts closer to Steve, bumping him in the shoulder.

“Shut up,” Steve says, but he can’t help smiling. Bucky grins, and pulls Steve against him. In doing so, he accidentally jostles against Steve’s side. Steve tries to hide his wince, but Bucky isn’t fooled. 

“Lemme see that,” he says, moving away slightly and putting his hand on Steve’s shoulder. 

“I’m all patched up, I’m fine,” Steve complains. 

“Just lemme see it, you lug.”

Steve lifts up his shirt gingerly, and Bucky leans in to get a closer look. He skims his fingertips over it lightly, butterfly wing-gentle, and Steve draws in a breath. 

“Does it hurt?” Bucky says softly. When Steve looks down at him, Bucky’s looking up.

Steve wants to kiss him. He doesn’t know if it’s Bucky’s hands on his skin or the way Bucky’s looking at him but Steve wants to kiss him.

“Yeah, you jerk, it’s a fuckin’ bruise, ‘course it hurts,” he jokes, trying to dispel the thought from his head. 

Bucky rolls his eyes, settles his arm over Steve so that Steve’s leaning against his chest again. Steve can hear the steady pulse of Bucky’s heartbeat. 

They sit like this in silence for a few minutes, then Bucky says, “You really gotta stop getting into fights, Steve. Almost gave me a heart attack there.” Steve can hear a vulnerability in his voice that’s rarely there, and it brings him up short. He can feel Bucky hesitate before he continues, “You know, I’m– I’m always afraid that one day you’ll get yourself into a mess like this, and I won’t be able to– that I won’t be able to find you in time.” He draws in a breath. There’s just a hint of a tremor in his voice when he says, “You don’t know how much that scares me, Steve.”

Steve lifts his head, and he sees that Bucky’s eyes are red-rimmed. He isn’t crying, but he looks close to tears. Steve’s heart twinges painfully. He sits up, pulls Bucky close and holds him so Bucky’s head is tucked under his chin. He runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair and gives in to the urge to kiss the top of his head the way Bucky always does to him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers against Bucky’s hair. “God, I’m sorry, Buck. I don’t mean to make you worry.”

He can’t remember the last time he did this – usually Bucky’s the one who holds him and comforts him, when he’s sick or injured, and he doesn’t often see Bucky so scared. 

Bucky exhales a shaky laugh against his collarbone, and Steve suppresses an involuntary shudder. “You’re doing a damn shit job of it, you punk. Always worrying about you.” Bucky extricates himself from Steve’s arms, and Steve can’t help but be acutely aware of the fact that Bucky’s face is about three inches from his. It doesn’t help things when Bucky touches his face, stroking a thumb over the bandage covering the scrape on his cheekbone. Bucky’s looking straight at him, gaze intense and boring into Steve when he says urgently in a low tone, “Why else d’you think I’m always so goddamn angry at you when I pull you out of another tussle? It scares the living hell outta me.”

And Steve thinks he might’ve suffered some form of head trauma after all, because he leans in the scant three inches and kisses Bucky. 

Really it’s a ghost of a kiss, barely a brush of lips on lips for a fraction of a second, because he comes to his senses, horrified as the realisation of what he did chills him like a shock of cold water. “Oh god, I’m so fucking sorry,” he gasps, jerking away like he was electrocuted. Fuck, what has he _done_? “I’m sorry, oh god.”

Bucky’s hands are on his shoulders. “Hey, hey. Calm down.” Steve meets his eyes, panicked and just a bit short of breath. “It’s okay, Steve.”

Steve is this close to hyperventilating. “No, no it’s not. Fuck, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I don’t know why I–” 

He’s cut off, because Bucky kisses him again, whisper-soft, butterfly wing-gentle. 

Steve is drowning. He is taking his first breath. He melts into it. 

“Steve,” Bucky mumbles against his lips. 

Steve pulls away, puts the tiniest hint of space between them. “What are you doing?” he asks. Whisper-soft, like maybe this soap-bubble daydream might shatter. 

“Kissing you,” Bucky says, and tries to lean in again. 

Steve stops him. “Bucky,” he says, more pressingly.

Bucky sighs. “I don’t know.” He wipes a hand across his face. The daydream maybe shatters. Steve’s heart sinks a little. 

“You don’t know why you... why you kissed me?” he asks, trying not to sound as disappointed as he feels. The words “ _you kissed me_ ” are hard to get out, sticking like taffy to the roof of his mouth. 

“No, no, I–”

“You didn’t have to do that, Buck. I’m sorry I kissed you, I know it was a mistake. I’m sorry. Can we forget it ever happened? Please?” He doesn’t want to. God, he doesn’t. But the alternative is worse. He cannot tell the truth. 

Bucky visibly deflates. “Is that what you want?” Steve tries his damned best to tamp down the hope that rises in him at Bucky’s reaction. 

He cannot tell the truth. 

Steve is not known for his good sense. He doesn’t think he can keep it to himself. The alternative is worse, he decides carelessly. His entire life is flecked with a whole slew of incidents exhibiting his lack of sense. 

“I know why I did it,” he says, staring hard at a loose thread on the couch cushion to avoid meeting Bucky’s eyes. His heart is thundering in his chest, and he feels faintly light-headed. “S’cause I love you. The way I should love a dame.”

Bucky doesn’t speak for a while. Steve resists the urge to fidget, doesn’t dare peek at his face, isn’t prepared for what he might see there. 

“You mean that?” Bucky’s voice is even and gives away nothing. Bucky’s a swell guy – he’s nothing if not kind, and Steve is almost a hundred per cent sure Bucky wouldn’t hit him for being queer, or even show disgust. Pity, maybe. Steve nods, just barely, eyes downcast still. In his peripheral vision he sees Bucky’s hand reach towards his face, and, to his own horror, he flinches. All Bucky does is tip his chin up with his fingers, and of course he notices Steve’s reaction. 

“Did you think I was gonna hit you?” Bucky asks softly. Steve doesn’t think he’s ever heard Bucky sound so hurt. 

“No, Buck, of course not, I–”

“I would never,” Bucky says, voice steady and fierce with conviction, “never hurt you. Ever. Got that?” Steve nods again. “Good,” Bucky says, and kisses him again. “Because I love you too.”

It’s like this, Steve thinks, when Bucky’s hands come up to cradle his face like he’s the most fragile thing; it’s like this: Steve is six years old and he’s just mouthed off to a couple of neighbourhood kids. They’re beating the hell out of him when some boy he doesn’t even know comes charging in and literally chases them off with a stick, fighting dirty because that’s the only way he can win against boys older and meaner than he is. Bucky emerges from the fight with scrapes, bruises, and one Steve Rogers. The first two go away eventually. The latter doesn’t. 

At eight years old Steve gets scarlet fever and Bucky’s not allowed to see him because the doctors say it’ll spread. Steve’s ma tells him later that it never stopped Bucky from trying, that he came by every day after school, still, to see if they’ll let him. When it becomes rheumatic fever he’s finally allowed to see Steve, and he sits by him every day until he recovers. 

Steve is thirteen, and Bucky’s fourteen going on fifteen and handsome. All of a sudden he has a jawline and cheekbones, and towers over Steve. He holds himself slightly awkwardly, though endearingly so. The girls at school start to notice him, but Steve’s been looking the whole time. The only difference is that this is the first time he realises it. He hasn’t been able to look away, since. 

Steve is sixteen, and Bucky’s just turned eighteen. He is dreamlike from every angle, and when Steve looks up at him he’s looking back. His eyes are steel-blue and very intense. That night, Steve falls asleep to the sound of his heartbeat. 

Steve is sixteen, and for once a double date actually works out. Edie Callahan is everything he’d ever want in a girl, and he knows he could love her, but when she brings up Monet he can’t help but sneak a glance at Bucky out on the dance floor. When he kisses her goodnight, he’s thinking of Bucky. 

Steve is sixteen, and he’s just mouthed off to some crude fucker on the street and gotten beat up for it. Bucky finishes the fight for him and emerges with raw knuckles, but they will heal eventually. Steve is sixteen and so in love that it saturates him and laces the surface of his skin like crystals. He can’t look Bucky in the eye. Steve is sixteen, and Bucky Barnes loves him back. It doesn’t make any sense at all, but at the same time it’s the only thing that makes sense to him. This is a special brand of clarity, he thinks. 

Bucky pulls back eventually, but not before biting gently on Steve’s split bottom lip as if in reproach. He leans his forehead against Steve’s, and his lips are mesmerisingly red and his pupils are blown. It’s quiet, except for the faint sounds of their breathing. 

“I’m glad we came to this conclusion, but just so you know, you could’ve skipped getting beat up and just fuckin’ told me straight up, punk,” Bucky says at last, and the charged, almost tense atmosphere goes back to normal.

“You’re a fuckin’ jerk. If it’s so goddamn easy you coulda said it.” Steve shoves Bucky in the shoulder, and they start roughhousing until Bucky gets Steve in a headlock and Steve struggles so hard they fall on the floor. They’re both laughing even though Steve’s bruises hurt like a motherfucker. Then Bucky turns it into a hug and kisses the top of Steve’s head. 

“Love you,” Bucky says, smiling like the biggest sap on the planet. 

Steve kisses Bucky’s nose, because it’s scrunched up and cute and he’s allowed to do that now. He curls up with his head tucked under Bucky’s chin, and says, “I said it first, so there.” He can’t see Bucky roll his eyes, but he knows for a fact that he does.  



	4. Chapter 4

Not that either of them ever expected it to be all sunshine and roses from there, but it’s really not. 

When the rosy haze of the whole thing wears off, Steve just thinks it plain doesn’t make sense. With looks and charm like that and a great personality to boot, Bucky can have any girl. Or boy, for that matter, if he wants. He’s been on dates with bombshells like Clara O’Leary, for crying out loud. Steve can’t for the life of him see why Bucky would love him – he’s grumpy and runty and picks fights he can’t finish and has a whole laundry list of illnesses. He says so to Bucky one night when they’re in Steve’s room. It’s been bothering him for the whole week that’s passed since that night, and he’s never been good at keeping things to himself. 

“Don’t say that ’bout yourself, Steve. You’re the greatest guy I know.” That’s Bucky’s answer whenever Steve’s down on himself. Coming from anyone else Steve supposes it’d sound like a default, generic response, except Bucky’s all sincere and he actually means it. Back when they were only best friends, Steve just let it be, but now that there’s more at stake he can’t. 

“I’m just saying, you know. If you’re, you know, like this with– with me. I don’t wanna ruin your chances with dames, or anything. If you want to date somebody. Which I’m sure you will. So, you know,” Steve trails off awkwardly, not quite knowing how to say what he wants to. Sure, the prospect of Bucky dating someone else hurts, but it’s not like he’s gonna hang around and deprive Bucky of the opportunity to find someone steady, someone he can marry a couple years down the road. 

Bucky says, “Steve, you ain’t ruining my chances with anybody. I wanna be with you, I thought I made that real clear.”

“Don’t say that, Buck. You gotta have a steady girl someday. Don’t wanna get in your way – plus it’s illegal, I’m making you a criminal,” Steve mumbles, staring resolutely at a scratch in the floorboard.

“Hey, where the hell’s this nonsense coming from? Steve, look at me.” Steve doesn’t. “Steve.” Sighing, Steve looks up to face Bucky, setting his jaw stubbornly despite the faint flush he can feel spreading on his cheeks. “You ain’t gettin’ in the way of anything. And you’re making it sound like– like you’re holding me here against my will or something. You ain’t.”

“Just want you to know you got choices. In case,” Steve says in a small voice. 

“I don’t want ’em,” Bucky says. He takes Steve’s hands in his own. “I’ve always loved you, okay? Hell, the only person I even want a chance with is you. Not some girl, or any other fella.”

Steve’s blushing all the way down his neck and to the tips of his ears now. “But–”

“But nothing,” Bucky says with finality. “I don’t want anyone else, so stop saying that. I want you.” He pauses. “Well, if you’ll have me,” he finishes, suddenly softer and almost shy. Steve never thought he’d see Bucky Barnes being _shy_. 

“I don’t want anybody else ’cept you either,” Steve says. “Not that I could get anyone else,” he amends wryly, “but, y’know.”

“That Edie gal was into you,” Bucky says, looking at Steve with his lips quirked. “What’s not to like? Prettiest baby blues, cute smile, artistic too. Everything I want in a man.”

“Shut up, Buck,” Steve says, even though it makes him feel all warm inside. To hide the smile that’s threatening to show, he leans over and kisses Bucky long and hard, punctuating it with a soft bite on his bottom lip. 

“Kisses damn good too,” Bucky says a bit breathlessly when they break apart. “Could do much worse, really.” 

“Stop it,” Steve groans, burying his face in his hands and collapsing face-first against Bucky’s chest. Bucky laughs, arms coming up around him. One hand ends up in his hair, stroking absentmindedly. 

“One’a these days I’m gonna take you out,” Bucky says absently a while later. “Did you know there are queer bars and dancehalls and stuff downtown? If you know where to look and who to ask. Even more down in Harlem.” Steve knows, of course. You don’t live near the Navy Yard and not hear about these things. “Gonna take you out to one of those places one day.”

“You know I can’t dance, Buck,” Steve says. 

“I just wanna take you out, on a real proper date. Show you off, make everyone else jealous,” Bucky says. 

Steve says, “I think it’s me they’ll be jealous of, pal.”

“Nah, they’ll all be wondering how someone like me snagged a perfect gentleman like you,” Bucky says, ruffling Steve’s hair. Steve rolls his eyes. Then Bucky’s face lights up with a grin, and he says, “Tell ya what, I’ll teach you how to dance.”

“What, right now?”

“Right now,” Bucky says firmly. 

That’s how they end up in Steve’s cramped living room, with the beat-up old radio on. It’s falling apart and the sound’s staticky, but it works. There’s a slow jazz song on, and Bucky leads Steve into some simple steps. This doesn’t stop Steve from treading on Bucky’s toes every so often, but in any case he does it less than he did to Edie that day at the dancehall.

“Pay attention to the beat,” Bucky guides, his hand a steadying weight on Steve’s waist. Steve tries, but Bucky’s touch is distracting as hell, and so is the fact that they’re standing closer to each other than people usually do at dancehalls. He doesn’t know how anyone even does this. 

Steve says, “Kinda hard to concentrate on anything when–” He breaks off, flushing.

“When what?” Bucky prompts, and was the motherfucker smirking?

“S’hard to focus when you’re touching me,” Steve says. He turns even redder at how dirty it sounds. “You know what, you jerk. You just wanted to hear me say it.”

“And so what if I did?” Bucky retorts. “Eyes up here, c’mon,” he says. “Quit staring at the floor.”

“You’re a demanding bastard,” Steve grouses, but he looks up anyway. Stares into the grey-blue of Bucky’s eyes, half challenging, half because they’re just really fucking gorgeous and he’s damn well allowed to gaze dreamily into his fella’s eyes if he wants to. And he doesn’t know why, but it gradually becomes easier to settle into the slow, languid tempo of the music. It becomes almost comfortable.

“God, you’re pretty,” Bucky says, a soft expression on his face. “How’d I get so lucky?”

“Bet you say that to all the girls,” Steve says. He’s really only half-joking. 

“Just you, sweetheart, I swear it,” Bucky says. 

“M’not your girl, Buck, don’t call me that,” Steve complains. It’s a sore spot for him, growing up delicate-looking and all. He can’t help but be a little defensive, even if he knows that Bucky probably doesn’t mean it like that. 

“It ain’t ’cause I think you’re my girl. I just wanna call you that ’cause I love you,” Bucky says, and shrugs. “You don’t look like a dame either.” He squints. “Well, ’cept for those eyelashes, maybe,” he amends, “but–” He cuts off, laughing, when Steve punches him in the shoulder.

Somewhere along the line the song had changed into some waltz, and Bucky pulls Steve closer still, switching up the rhythm of their steps to match the pulse of the music. He laughs, fond, when Steve stumbles a little. “The beat’s in triple time here, so it’s different,” he says. He counts one, two, three out loud and Steve tries to follow. “Yeah, you got it,” Bucky says encouragingly, when Steve starts stepping in time. “See, it ain’t hard.”

“That’s ’cause it’s a slow song. Any faster than this and you’ll be eatin’ your words,” Steve says. 

“Nah, s’cause I’m a good teacher,” Bucky responds, leading Steve in a slightly awkward twirl. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Steve says.

“Are you dismissing me, Steve Rogers?” Bucky accuses in mock-outrage. “I’m heartbroken,” he sighs. “Tell a guy you’re in love with him and suddenly he doesn’t care about you no more.”

“I said it _first_ , you jerk,” Steve reminds him. He’s never gonna let that one go. 

Bucky pulls him in by the waist until Steve’s body is flush against his. “Say it again, and I’ll consider forgiving you for brushing me off.”

“You’re damn demanding, Buck,” Steve says. If Bucky’s hand on his waist made it difficult to keep his composure, it’s nothing compared to being pressed up against the whole front of Bucky’s body. They’ve stopped moving, the music all but forgotten. 

“You’re breakin’ my heart, sugar,” Bucky says, pouting. Despite himself, Steve can’t resist lifting a hand so he can press his thumb against the inviting swell of Bucky’s full bottom lip. Bucky takes the tip of Steve’s finger into his mouth, nipping at it playfully. “Say it, c’mon.” 

Steve relents. “I love you,” he mumbles, and trails his thumb down until it rests at the dimple in Bucky’s chin. 

“I love you too, sweetheart,” Bucky says. He tugs Steve towards him by the collar of his shirt until their lips meet in a heady kiss, slow and soft. Bucky’s other hand is gripping Steve’s waist, and Steve loops his arms around Bucky’s neck, pulling him lower. This whole thing is still very much new, and Steve can’t believe he can actually do this now. It’s intoxicating, to say the least, and he wonders if it’ll ever stop feeling this way. Bucky’s lips part, tongue stroking against Steve’s, and Steve shivers at the touch of velvety heat.

“Fuck, you’re sweet,” Bucky murmurs against Steve’s lips. “You’re so damn sweet.” Steve moans softly, and stands on his tiptoes so he can kiss deeper, can’t get enough of Bucky’s mouth and the way he tastes. He whimpers, burying his hand in Bucky’s hair when Bucky bites at his lip, then laves his tongue over to soothe it. 

They break apart eventually, breathing heavy. Bucky’s hair is mussed, pupils blown, and he’s got twin spots of colour on his cheeks. Steve could probably count the number of times he’s seen Bucky blush on one hand, and it makes him feel triumphant, to have this effect on Bucky.

“Just for the record,” Steve says solemnly after he catches his breath, “I kissed you first too.”

Bucky huffs a laugh and shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re such a punk,” he says. 

—

It’s tradition, has been since they were kids – on Bucky’s birthday, they spend a day out with each other doing whatever, then stay the night at Bucky’s place. On Steve’s birthday, they spend a day out with each other doing whatever, then stay the night at Steve’s place. 

Most of the time, on Steve’s birthday ‘doing whatever’ usually means going to Coney Island. On Steve’s fourteenth birthday, Bucky had coerced Steve into taking the Cyclone with him. Never one to step down from a challenge and look like a coward, Steve had done it. He’d thrown up after and said, “Never again, Jesus fuck,” and Bucky had been worried like he always was about Steve. After seeing that he was okay, though, Bucky’d laughed and ribbed him endlessly. Every year after that, it was a running joke for Bucky to say, “Hey Steve, how about the Cyclone?” and Steve would give a rude reply and punch him somewhere. 

This year, when they see the Cyclone in the distance, Bucky points to it and says, “Hey Steve, ready to give the Cyclone another go?”

And Steve says, “Fuck off, Bucky.” Then he socks Bucky in the ribs, and Bucky retaliates, which results in them tussling like a couple of unruly kids in the middle of Coney Island. They only stop when they almost tumble straight into a family of four with two small children. The mother glares and pulls her daughter out of the way, and Steve blushes and mumbles, “Really sorry, ma’am.” He looks real apologetic and everything, and Bucky has to hold back a laugh. 

Bucky throws an arm over Steve’s shoulder and says, “Hey, let’s go down to the shooting gallery, I’ll win you something.”

They go to one of those with pop-guns that shoot cork bullets, because the ones with real guns cost something like fifteen cents for a go and nobody’s got that kind of dough lying around. It’s just as well, because the thought of Bucky firing a real gun makes Steve feel queasy. It’s ridiculous that the nightmare from months ago still affects him, and that he still thinks about it from time to time, but he just can’t forget about it. 

Steve watches as Bucky hits every target dead-on in rapid succession, and then brings him a kewpie doll with a smile like sunshine on his face. “Thanks, Buck,” Steve says, taking the doll. She’s a funny little thing, in a blue dress, with big blue eyes and mousy brown hair in a swirl on top of her head.

“You gonna give her a name?” Bucky asks, way more enthusiastic about a kewpie doll than he probably should be. He’s grinning in that way that makes his nose scrunch up, practically bouncing on the spot with his hands in his pockets. If Steve were a girl, or if they were alone, he’d lean up and kiss Bucky on the nose, and then plant one on his mouth for good measure. 

“You’re a child, Bucky Barnes,” Steve teases. He loves seeing Bucky so happy, especially over little things like that; he wants to bottle this feeling up and keep it safe forever. “I’m gonna call her Jamie,” he says. 

“My ma used to call me that when I was little,” Bucky says, pulling a face.

“Exactly.”

“Why the hell are you naming a girl doll after me, Rogers? You’re the worst,” Bucky says, lightly shoving into Steve as they walk. 

“Big blue eyes, brown hair. The similarities are endless. It’s a sign,” Steve says. 

“I only heard two similarities,” Bucky points out, but Steve can hear the smile in his voice, “and you’re one to talk about big blue eyes, I don’t know how I put up with you. Though, come to think of it, I do really like your eyes. I could write _poetry_ about them, hand to God.” He leans down and says this into Steve’s good ear, voice lowered so that it gets lost in the din of the crowd and no one hears but Steve. 

“Stop being dramatic, Buck,” he says, flushing pink.

“You’re really fucking adorable when you blush, you know that?” Bucky says, and when Steve sneaks a glance up at him he’s staring in a way that’s perhaps a tad too lovesick to be seen in public. Lucky for them, it’s so crowded that no one’s really paying attention. 

“Oh my god, shut up,” Steve pleads. His face feels like it’s on fire. Bucky laughs and ruffles his hair, messing it up for good. 

When they make it to the beach it’s packed, so they find a space right at the edge of the sand that’s quieter. Steve gets out his sketchbook, and a stub of a pencil that’s seen better days for sure. Bucky’s lying on the sand with his hands clasped beneath his head, serene and golden and beautiful, and Steve starts to draw him. It’s liberating to know that he doesn’t have to hide it from Bucky anymore, and he makes full use of this freedom to study every plane that makes up Bucky’s face and body for as long as he wants, as closely as he wants. He captures the glint of sunlight in Bucky’s hair and the curve of his lip, the near-translucency of his irises, the angle of his jaw and the shadows in the hollow of his throat.

He only stops when Bucky, restless, picks up the kewpie doll and starts fiddling with it just for something to do with his hands. That’s when Steve laughs, and flips to a clean page so he can draw a cartoon of Bucky playing with dolls.

He continues sketching until the sun disappears down past the horizon, sky going from pink-orange to dark before he finally closes his sketchbook and lies down next to Bucky. 

Eventually the fireworks start, and Bucky turns onto his side to face Steve and says, “Look what I got you for your birthday. Pretty neat, huh?” Steve can’t remember Bucky ever not saying that; he remembers back when he first told Bucky his birthday was on the Fourth of July and Bucky’d said, “No way!” with wide eyes. 

By all rights a joke like that should’ve been worn out years and years ago, but Steve always laughs and says, “Thanks, Buck,” all sincere, and he does the same this year. 

The only difference is that when Bucky whispers, “Happy seventeenth, Steve,” he reaches across the ground to link his pinky with Steve’s, like a promise.  



	5. Chapter 5

The weather’s getting cold fast, and the sun’s setting earlier – it’s not even six, but it’s completely dark out save for the glow from the street lamps. Steve wraps his flimsy coat around him, but it does little to shield him from the blustering wind.

It starts off as a tickle in his throat, and Steve coughs into a gloved hand, hoping that it’s just irritation and he doesn’t actually fall sick. Of course, with Steve, that’s never the case, and by the time he makes it home he’s shivering from the cold and coughing almost incessantly, chest constricting. 

Steve begins to feel lightheaded when he’s boiling potatoes for dinner, and that’s when he knows for sure a fever’s coming on. He picks at them when they’re done; even the bland tasteless mush makes his stomach churn. He only finishes his meal because it’s not like they can afford to throw out food. Still, part of him’s optimistic that it might not get so bad – he gets the common cold often enough, so figures he’ll sleep it off, and maybe by the next morning he’d feel better. 

He wakes up in the middle of the night shivering, even under two blankets. His head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton and his nose is blocked. Dread starts to set in, because he just knows it’s going to be serious – especially with his existing list of chronic ailments that amplify every little bout of sickness and make them ten times more risky than they are alone. Feeling utterly horrible, he trudges to the kitchen, takes a dose of fever medicine before going back to bed, hoping it’ll help tamp his temperature down. 

As Steve lies in his bed tightly swathed in all the blankets he owns and trying to fall back asleep, he suddenly wishes Bucky was there to hold him. It’s a childish thought, but he can’t help but think about how warm Bucky is, and the way he smells wrapped all around Steve. 

—

Steve doesn’t get better. It’s been a couple days, and though his temperature goes down sometimes, it always shoots back up in a matter of hours. It gets so bad that his ma gets a doctor to come around once – they only get a doctor when Steve’s ma knows it’s something real bad. The doctor says, gravely, that Steve’s got pneumonia. He prescribes medication, and urges Steve’s ma to get him hospitalised, but they really don’t have the money for it.

When Steve’s not asleep, he’s wracked by horrible coughing fits so violent that his eyes water and his chest hurts. His body aches all over, and his skin feels oversensitive the way it does when he gets really sick. 

Steve’s ma takes care of him during the day, barely getting any sleep from the way she gets up to check on him every couple of hours. The sight of dark circles under her eyes fills Steve with guilt. She can’t take time off at the hospital either – Steve’s missed so many days at his own work already, in addition to the medicine and doctor’s fees costing them a hell of a lot of money. 

Bucky comes by almost every night, some days bearing broth made by Mrs Barnes. The first couple days he’s his usual own animated self; he tells Steve about his day – though Steve’s usually too tired and out of it to reply – or talks about anything that comes to his mind. One thing about Bucky is his ability to just keep _talking_ , and Steve wonders if part of that’s because he’s spent so much time over the course of about ten years just talking _at_ Steve whenever he’s sick and doesn’t have the energy to contribute to the conversation. 

After the doctor’s diagnosis, though, with Steve not getting any better, Bucky gets worried, and starts to seem less cheerful, more subdued. Sometimes he sits holding Steve’s clammy hand in his warm one, and strokes Steve’s hair without saying a single word. Sometimes he still talks, but he’s not as spirited as he was before. 

At one point Steve, half-conscious and woozy, hears Bucky say, “Remember a couple months ago when I said I was gonna take you out on a date one’a these days?” His voice wobbles like he’s on the verge of tearing up, and he clears his throat. He takes Steve’s hand in both of his own and presses his lips to Steve’s knuckles. “You get better, and I’ll take you out and show you a real good time, deal?” he says. “You’re gonna have to let me treat you real nice and proper and everything, so you gotta get better, sweetheart, you gotta get better for me.” 

He sounds real scared. Steve wants to say something back, but he can’t seem to stay awake, and sleep pulls him under. 

—

Steve wakes with his breath shallow in his chest. 

The first thing he registers is a tinny voice over the radio.

He blinks, once. Twice. 

The first thing he sees is a ceiling fan overhead, spinning in slow circles. 

_“... and the crowd well knows that one swing of his bat this fella’s capable of making it a brand new game again...”_

It sounds familiar, and he knows he’s heard this before, but he doesn’t know where it’s from. 

Then it comes to him. He’s twenty-three, tagging along on a Barnes family outing to the Dodgers game at Ebbets Field, with Bucky’s da and Bucky and Rebecca –

No, that can’t be right. He’s sixteen and burning up with fever, can’t seem to catch his breath. Bucky’s keeping up a mindless stream of chatter at his bedside in that overly nonchalant tone he uses when he’s trying not to let on how worried he really is but Steve can always tell –

The ceiling is slanted, painted white, not a single crack to be seen. He doesn’t know where or how his ma scrounged up the money to get him in a hospital. He must have gotten real bad for her to resort to this, because heaven knows it’s gonna cost them a fortune, way more than they can afford. No one else is here with him. Not even Bucky, who’s always there when he’s even the least bit unwell. Maybe it’s like that time when he was eight years old and got scarlet fever, and the doctor didn’t let Bucky visit because it might spread. Steve just really wants Bucky here like always, to hold his hand and talk to him about his day, anything –

_“– just an absolutely gorgeous day here at Ebbets Field–”_

He’d been a little reluctant to accept when Bucky’d asked him to come along, because he didn’t want to intrude, but Bucky was all shining eyes and smiling with his nose scrunched up; he’d been so excited because he knew how much Steve loved the Dodgers and how much he’d always wanted to see them play, since he was little –

Steve’s not recovering. If anything he seems to be getting worse and worse every day. The coughs wrack his whole body and he spends most of the time knocked out. He’s so tired. Bucky’s almost always at his bedside, holding his hand, or brushing his hair back. Sometimes, he hears Bucky talking, the fear bleeding through his voice despite his best efforts to hide it. Bucky sounds like he’s trying not to cry when he promises that he’ll take Steve out on a real date after he gets better–

_“– Phillies managed to tie it four to four, but the Dodgers have three men on–”_

Steve’s heart was in his throat, and he was screaming his lungs out for the Dodgers along with the Barneses. Bucky’d told him off about five times already, because his asthma could flare up anytime if he got too worked up, but Steve just can’t help it, he’d never been so goddamn agitated in his life–

Steve lifts his head from the pillow, and for the first time he’s aware of the body he’s in. Wide, muscular chest. Thick arms, broad shoulders. 

His stomach lurches suddenly, and the panic that crashes over him with all the vicious force of a tidal wave makes him feel violently sick. 

_No. God, please, no._

His eyes flick around the room as he pushes himself into a sitting position slowly, a cold numbness in him giving the appearance of calmness that he does not feel. 

_Anything but this._

Steve knows for sure, all the way down to his bones, down to their marrow, that this is not a dream. He knows what this is. He knows. His heart sinks. 

Outside, a car honks. He turns to look at the window, ends up zeroing in on the radio instead. His pulse is racing, breath quickening. 

It’s not 1935. 

It’s not 1941, either. 1941, Bucky and Becca with mirrored sunshine smiles, Bucky with his arm around Steve’s shoulders, saying, _for the love of God, Rogers, sit the hell down before you yell yourself to an early death_ –

Bucky is sharp and rakish and beautiful in his dress uniform, hat tilted at a jaunty angle. He says, _right, ’cause you got nothing to prove_. He says, _don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone_ , and when he hugs Steve goodbye he smells woodsy like the aftershave he used to buy on the cheap, and he smells like Bucky –

Bucky is strapped to a metal table in a Hydra base at Azzano. Bucky’s saying, _I thought you were smaller_. He’s screaming _no, not without you_ , his voice torn and terrible from across a sea of fire –

Bucky is falling. He cries out, once, sharply, and then he’s falling. Everywhere around him, the snow is a sickening shade of stark white. 

Bucky Barnes is dead. Steve should be, too. 

There’s a click as the doorknob turns, and Steve’s eyes dart towards it immediately. 

A woman comes in, and she’s all smiles when she says, “Good morning.” She glances at her wristwatch as she shuts the door behind her. “Or should I say, afternoon.” She clasps her hands in front of her expectantly. 

“Where am I?” Steve asks.

“You’re in a recovery room in New York City.” Her reply comes just a beat too late, and her tone is even and measured.

Steve looks her up and down, and as he takes her in he realises that there’s something... off. The hair and the clothes are all just on this side of wrong.

He studies her. “Where am I really?” 

She smiles nervously. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she says. 

Steve continues to stare at her, and sees her shift uneasily under his gaze. “The game,” he says slowly. “It’s from late 1941, I know ’cause I was there.”

The smile falls from her face. Steve stands, and approaches her. “Now I’m gonna ask you again,” he warns, voice low and threatening. “Where am I?”

“Captain Rogers,” she starts carefully. It’s probably an attempt to sound placating, the way one would approach a distressed animal. 

“Who are you?” Steve shouts, and at the same time the door opens again. 

Steve takes a step back, alarm rising in him again as two armed men enter. He considers his frankly limited options for a split second, makes his decision. When the two men make for him, he grabs them by their uniforms and hurls them into the wall with all his strength. 

As it turns out, the wall’s fake and paper-thin, and it splinters apart completely in an explosive mess of dust and plaster. Not what he expected, but he’ll take an out. He sprints out of the room through the huge hole in the wall, with the woman’s voice calling after him and telling him to wait. 

He pushes open the double doors in front of him, and outside the whole place is filled with people milling about in severe-looking black suits. For a moment, he’s at a loss. He doesn’t know where he’s going. He doesn’t know where he is. He just needs to get out. 

_“All agents, Code 13.”_

At the sound of the command, several agents advance on him all at once. Steve takes them out, and continues running until he’s out of the building. 

Once he’s outdoors, everything around him is so bright and colourful and jarring he can hardly bear it, and the strange-looking cars all honk angrily at him when he barrels straight into the road unthinkingly. It’s sensory overload, and he can’t process everything that’s going on. Nothing makes sense.

Two cars stop in front of Steve, and an authoritative voice barks, “At ease, soldier!” This, at least, he can understand. He stops, finding it hard to catch his breath all of a sudden, though not from physical exertion. Said man wearing an eyepatch and a long black coat approaches him, and says, “Look, I’m sorry about that little show back there. We thought it best to break it to you slowly.”

It still doesn’t make sense to Steve. “Break what?”

“You’ve been asleep, Cap,” the man says, “for seventy years.” 

Seventy years. That’s not possible. He crashed the plane, and... what? He survived? Was in a coma for that long and somehow didn’t age?

This was never the plan. Not by a long shot.

It’s like this: Steve is twenty-seven years old, and he can’t get drunk anymore, no matter how much he tries, or how badly he wants to be. One night, he confesses to Peggy, _I don’t know what I’ll do, if I wake up tomorrow and he’s not there_. She doesn’t remind him that Bucky’s been dead for more than a week. 

He tries to do his best by his unit, really, he does. Then one night Peggy finds him in a bar alone, and he’s numb even without the alcohol when he whispers, “I can’t remember the colour of his eyes, Peg. God help me, I can’t– I–” he breaks off with a shuddering breath, and Peggy’s there when he falls apart. He doesn’t even have the energy to be bothered by his own selfishness when he thinks, _it’s not enough_. 

It’s not that Steve’s looking for an out, per se, but when he finally sees one, he’s all too relieved to take it. 

When he goes into the ice, Bucky’s there, waiting for him to wake.

Steve is sixteen years old, and he wakes up with tears in his eyes. To him Bucky is a spectre, a light trick composed of too-soft edges. When the sun catches up with them at last, Steve watches the progression of dawn tease out the copper tones that glint off of Bucky’s lashes. Bucky’s all warm eyes and childlike grins and filled to the brim with promises neither of them can keep. 

Steve is ninety-seven, and he’s so, so tired, suddenly. 

_Why’d you wake me?_ he doesn’t say. _I could’ve dreamt forever._

He’s so damn tired. He just wants to sleep. He wants to go back to sleep and never wake up ever again. 

“You gonna be okay?” the man asks.

And Steve thinks, _I don’t know what I’ll do, if I wake up and he’s–_

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Yeah, I just...” He pauses, swallows. He’s hollow, he’s being ripped apart from the inside out. “I had a date.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 5 did you mean abusing dashes and italics??
> 
> p.s. I know the “I had a date” line was about peggy and I rly do love her, this is just an alternative take on that line !! :)


	6. Epilogue

A couple months before Steve turned twenty-four, he got roughed up real bad by a guy who’d spat on him and called him a fairy. Steve never found out if the guy knew anything for real, or if he was just making assumptions based off of Steve’s appearance. Either way, it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened, but it had been the worst. Bucky decided enough was enough, so they had to go out with girls to keep up appearances.

In the apartment they shared, they had two beds even though they always slept on the same one, because it’d give away everything to their landlord, or anyone who came by, if they only had the one bed. Steve can’t even pinpoint exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the line Bucky started sleeping in the other bed. 

He had a different dame on his arm every week it seemed, and came home reeking of booze, with lipstick smeared on his mouth and collar. Sometimes, he’d stand at the doorway and look at Steve with wistfulness written so transparently across his face that Steve’s heart ached for him, but Bucky never touched Steve anymore. Steve couldn’t even find it in himself to be jealous of those girls, because Bucky was doing it to protect him, even though it hurt both of them. He got mad about it more than a few times, in the beginning, but Bucky never budged. 

The day before the mission to intercept Zola’s train, Steve kissed Bucky for the first time in three years, and afterwards Bucky touched his face, all reverent and gentle, and looked at him like he couldn’t believe Steve was real. 

The next day, Steve lost everything that had ever made sense to him. 

—

Eventually, Steve goes back to Brooklyn. It’s different in all the ways that matter, but it’s got the same bones, the same fixtures. The streets and neighbourhoods go by the same names. He walks down DeKalb Avenue, then Fulton Street, where a huge Abraham & Straus used to be. He and his ma were never the type of folks to go there – they simply didn’t have the money, but he knew the Barneses did sometimes. 

The automat near the docks is gone, as is the tenement building he used to live in in Brooklyn Heights, the one that allowed him to see a sliver of sunrise just as long as he sat at the right spot on the fire escape, or in the living room. The same living room where he’d kissed Bucky for the first time, where Bucky had taught him how to waltz. 

The skeleton of his childhood hometown dredges Monet’s Houses of Parliament from the depths of his memory – he’d seen it in a book at the public library once, the same building painted over and over, but every piece different through years and seasons. 

Steve has drawn Brooklyn more times than he can count. He has drawn his mother sitting on their tattered old couch, and he has drawn the younger Barnes siblings with their bright eyes and wide grins. He has drawn the rosy-cheeked children playing catch at Prospect Park in the summertime, and their parents who looked on fondly. He has drawn men and women dressed to the nines and spinning each other around dancehalls, and he has drawn old Mr Flanagan at the newspaper stand down the street. He has drawn Bucky – he always, always draws Bucky, the angle of his cheekbones and the tiny shadows cast on them by his lashes, the column of his throat and the curve of his wrist, the pout of his lips and the dimple in his chin. 

Steve has drawn Brooklyn more times than he can count, and now they are all dead. 

In the place where the automat used to be is now a café, where a cup of coffee costs three dollars and fifty cents. Steve goes in, and picks an outdoor seat where he can get a good view of the new buildings that had popped up sometime in the last seventy years. He draws Brooklyn. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t believe I’m done with this fic ahh skskks
> 
> thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and for the kudos and comments. I really really do appreciate it :’) feel free to let me know what you think!!
> 
> till next time!! :)


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